in the german JA2 forum, i read a request about externalizing the bullet .STIs, bullet graphics and projectile behaviours.

externalizing the bullet graphics would grant completely new possibilities to more accurately simulate different projectile types (like tracer ammo, arrows or large caliber shells) or even make completely new ones like laser beams or plasma bursts for scifi themed mods.

in fact, i think this should be quite high on the priorities list, because it

i'd like Ammo distribution to be externalised if there's a way for this

say i place a solider in the map with a 5.56 assault rifle
Or say it is a random encounter, doesn't matter, i'd like to be able to restrict him from using glaser ammo, as it is useless in the later game. Of course i know other ways to disable the enemy from using glaser, but that would also disable the player from using glaser without crashes, which is definitly not what i want

of course, this also applies to any other ammo type, be it match, tracer, different explosive types,anti-tank etc

should be tied to ammotypes index, maybe even to magazines.xml indexes as you may want to have tracer for LMG's (100shots drum) but not for DMR's, but match grade ammo for snipers/ rifles etc.

should be tied to ammotypes index, maybe even to magazines.xml indexes as you may want to have tracer for LMG's (100shots drum) but not for DMR's, but match grade ammo for snipers/ rifles etc.

Now that can be a problem: Imagine someone is trying to load his assault rifle from the 100rnd drum, which normally works, but if you disabled the assault rifle mag of that ammotype, there may be a crash on unloading that gun, because the code cannot find the proper magazine (that's why Match ammo belt-boxes for machineguns exist, though they are not offered by BR; simply because you can load a LMG from other magazines and get a crash on unloading when there's no correct belt ammo).
I guess it is all or nothing for a given ammotype per caliber.

well, the player should be allowed to load whatever he gets hold of and whatever he likes, but the enemy shouldn't be able to chose from everything (in partiucliar, if these mags are only placeholders to avoid crashes)

but if the enemy comes in late game using a sniper rifle with glaser ammo against my EOD armor wearing heavy ops guy, then something has gone wrong

i could easily disable or remove all glaser mags myself, but i don't want to restrict it for the player, i want to prevent the AI from using an ammo type that's not suitable for their purpose

so, besides weapons and items, there would ideally be a magazinechoices.xml, maybe even related to the game progress such as enemy gun and (indirecly) item chocies are, so that i can make sure there's no late game glaser-d sniper or somesuch

of course, this is not the only purpose for such an xml. Editing such an xml would also allow to drastically restrict ammo types for the enemy for mods that find it fun to have the player organise rare or special (silent? XAP? Match grade ammo? not every banana country ak-47 weilding grunt has some of those) ammo through quest, traders, or because their setting (ww2 for example) doesn't allow of too many modern cartridge types

but if the enemy comes in late game using a sniper rifle with glaser ammo against my EOD armor wearing heavy ops guy, then something has gone wrong

I understand full well what you wanted to say, but may have failed to properly convey /my/ thoughts
I just wanted to say that there's not an easy solution, your wish needs some more work (the code that handles the EnemyAmmoChoice-xml).

I finally have a day off to revive an idea I had over in the discussion on calculating AP costs to draw and fire, there's a 1AP universal cost to shifting targets when they are "in-front" of the merc. I've got it down to only a single new variable in item.xml needed to allow modding of this targeting cost:

- either a %bonus or a straight value added to the 1AP target cost (allow negative values)
- cumulative for the item and attachments

Effect (Case applied directly to gun):
new variable effectively has no effect (either 100% of 1, or 0 change) = retarget cost stays 1
new variable effectively adds 2 (either 300% or +2) = cost to re-target is now 3AP in game
new variable negates targeting cost = either 0% or -1 depending on implementation

This is not the draw cost; we already have control over draw. This is a request for a variable in items.xml that modifies the existing 1AP cost difference when one acquires or shifts to a new targets in game, effectively externalizing it. With this type of control we will be able to separate targeting from trigger pulling (and steadying, dealing with recoil...).

I don't know if this has been suggested before, but I'd like if there was an option to completely mute everyone on the squad and make those repeated lines finaly go away. Mute (the button) does not seem to work and I'm just sick and tired of hearing those same speaches over and over and over again. Every time I meet enemies or whatever, someone has to say something. They pause the game too. It's annoying.

And another thing - I'd like if the butons under the minimap, those who make you filter the info on the map, would not go off on their own. When I'm on my militia info map I'd like to stay on it and not go on the squad info when anything happens.

some ideas: blood stains on the wall behind him would be cool. this only in the place where he got shot.

bullet impact decals would be cool, only in the place where he got shot (not where he ran away obviously)

it looks to me as if the game does determine the place where an enemy gets hit (the big blood pool) already.
would it be doable to add an optional second .sti decal file that only gets triggered in the place where a character gets hit but gets applied to both, walls within certain range behind the character and the ground as well?

if adding a second sti file isn't easy, maybe the logics which graphics from the blood decals file are used can be made editable? then adding some new graphics for the bullet decals to the end of the file and have them be only used in the place of the impact? something like that

For this one I was really wondering where to put it, but this seems to be the best place for it.

First, let me mention that there appears to be a 'maximum corpses on map' value which, when the limit is reached, causes all following corpses to simply disappear. This means that, when you kill someone and the limit is reached, he simply disappears. Only gear and some blood are left. This is most notable if you play with large garrisons and during Drassen counterattack.

I assume this was intentional by SirTech to avoid a slowdowns on slow computers, so I really wouldn't call it a bug. Since PC's have increased in power a lot since then it would be nice if the limit could be lifted. Actually, some people still have a bit dated PC's and some have high end PC's so that's the reason why I'm posting this here. It would be great if that value could be externalized to ini so everyone can set it to the value they like. ATM, the value seems to be around 100, so when you kill more then 100 enemies in sector, bodies start to disappear.

Hi wil473 and the other posters here,
we (the 1.13 team) are in the progress of getting JAPH as our BugZilla Admin. This will be followed by a closed BugZilla group first - but after a short testing period I'll bet we will open a part of BugZilla for such improvements and ideas, you all gave here!

So I'll please you to not forget your ideas, write it down in a sampler file somewhere at your desktop and try to be patient until we offer the BugZilla-for-everyone account

BTW:
IMHO the main aspects of the BugZilla are:
1) internal coordination between 1.13 members
2) interface to the modmakers
3) external bug reports by all our fans

When will this feature will be available? For now so I don't forget I'll post here

INI options

1. Control how much money mines give you
2. NIGHT_SIGHT_RANGE ( not DAY_SIGHT /2) or a divider option for DAY_SIGHT
3. Weapon range multiplier/divider ( so I don't have to modify xmls)
4. Aim Levels/Time (currently min is 4, unless you have scope) you get by right click on enemy.

OK I 've done number 3 from above post and I know how to make the rest... Since I started searching the code I've found a lot of values that if externalized, will help mod developers a lot... I AM GOING to externalize MOST if not all values. I have already started using an ini, I think xml is not the best way (for various reasons). My problem is that since my c++ skills are low, I might need some help... Is any coder willing to help me (just by answering any questions I might have)?

Because since 1.13, I experience that my 50-headed militia group is often defeated by 24-headed enemy group even after a few game-loads. The milita should have some large bonus when defending your sector like city or sam-site, defending is much easier than attacking and not everyone want to save and reload everytime the enemy pays a visit.
And also it would be nice to be able to set the milita combat strength according their type (green,regular,veteran).

...I experience that my 50-headed militia group is often defeated by 24-headed enemy group even after a few game-loads.

The only way that 24 enemies are going to defeat 50 militia is if it is something like all elites soldiers versus regular troops. Even then it's not a sure thing. I've seen 60 militia (all elite) defeat 100+ mixed groups in the Drassen counterattack with nearly no help from me but that is unusual.

Headrock:
Great, that would be perfect, I personally use your HAM (3.1 now), it's really good and should be added to the SVN. At anything I see from you here you just rock, Headrock!
About the optional strength of different militia types - it's not so essential. But it's strange, that as I remember in vanilla the veterans were very cool, often take out a LAW and blow a whole group of enemies up. Since 1.13, it appears to me, that they have much lower equipment. Would there be a possibility to adjust milita item choices in the future?

SpaceViking:
I forget to mention.. on autoresolve.
As I always play on insane, although highly rebalanced for my liking, Almost everytime there comes a group with 75-100% elites. As the most enjoyable part of the game are the tactical battles, I don't want to spend so much time by saving and reloading the game on every autoresolving city defending. I can change max militia to 40, max squad size to 20, to make those battles easier, but then when I play such a battle for myself it's really a mess with so many guys around.
And you rock too SpaceViking.

The SLOW_PROGRESS_FOR_MILITIA_ITEMS_CHOICE option is used when the game is equipping militia. Because they take the same gear as enemy, they suffer from SLOW_PROGRESS_FOR_ENEMY_ITEMS_CHOICE as well. So I have split it, the enemy and milita now are handled slightly differently. This option is the same as SLOW_PROGRESS_FOR_ENEMY_ITEMS_CHOICE, but is applied on milita separately. I also tweaked the militia gar choices, so they don't get useless things like LBE or kits.

The three settings for militia strength affects this:

* Increases their attack and defense rating (decreases the attack and defense rating against them)
in autoresolve.
* Increases their chance to hit in tactical combat (full bonus)
* Increses their APs in tactical combat (1/4 of bonus)
* Decreses the damage they recieve in tactical combat (half bonus)
* Increases their equipment quality in tactical combat (2/3 of bonus)

By "bonus" I mean the number you have set in those three settings. So if you put there 100% for veteran militia, their CtH will be doubled, they will have + 25% APs, they will have 50% damage resistance and their equipment will be much better.

Because we are not likely to improve their tactical AI an soon, this option can make them demigods on battlefield when set very high. This option has one main goal - to allow you to set max team size to high values while not need to set max militia per sector to high value as well. You can have enemy teams of max 50 soldiers and still have only 20-30 militia per sector. With 50 militia you would be annoyed to when rearranging militia in cities on strategic map, not to mention the interface is not made for such numbers right now.

If this thread is solved or rendered invalid (because of people discussing everything on BugZilla), please unsticky it.

In case this thread is still active, which I doubt, I request putting all requests in the first post and keeping it up to date. This thread is several years old.

In order to save you some work, I have read through the thread and I've written down all the requests that have been made so far. I don't know much about the game internals so I can't say for myself what has and hasn't been solved yet. The points which I believe to be solved have been crossed out.

I'm asking you to
1) Tell me what else has been solved or rendered invalid. Keep the thread clean and write me a PM.
2) Update the first post (moderators / the Scorpion required).

Redid the whole thing. Sorted by category. Then added the initial poster if I didn't know what was meant so you could look for the name. No priorities. Externalizations and feature requests alike. Removed those I considered pointless.

Maps
- SAM Sites: Define sectors each SAM site protects (enable adding new SAMs or disabling them).
- Mines: How much money each mine creates.
- Mines: Ability to place mines anywhere on the map, with or without sublevels.
- Maps: Triggers for alternate sectors to switch between during the game (e.g. rebuilding a town). (Khor1255)
- Maps: Define where Bloodcats can ambush. (bonechucker)

Essentially this thread and an IRC conversation. There was a debate about soldiers having crappy items, too crappy to use actually. That isn't relevant here though.

Gain

Modders could define gear for item classes further by directly stating which enemy / militia type gets what exact inventory condition. Since a gun's status has a direct impact on accuracy, this is an important gameplay related aspect.
Also, lowering the values to make enemy drops less desirable or increasing them to avoid having to buy weapons from firearms dealers is another good modding aspect.

Judging from the structure of the code snippet we've got 2 x 3 independent classes (militia and army) which we can control in detail, plus one default setting. Assuming we'll leave out the default one and create variable controlled code for each of the 6 classes with a pair of values for basic random determination (base + range or min to max), plus a progress divisor, we'd end up with 18 variables to externalize. Say we'd make the progress divisor always try to close the gap to 100% at maximum progress, we'd only have 12 variables to externalize. More would be far better for creating a non-linear spread, but 12 would do for a start. Maybe an additional flag if we want to include the MRK minimum.

Any additional finetuning of values by defining spread would require at least one more variable per class. Spread means how evenly the space from min to max is used. Perfect spread from 40 to 80 means an enemy is as likely to have a 40% gun as an 80% gun and everything in between. Tighter spread (achieved by an exponential formula) would mean most enemies would carry +-60% guns with only few actually reaching the boundaries. But that's not until at least these 13 values are externalized.

Being able to define how many enemy soldiers (possibly even how many Regular and how many Elite) are in the Drassen Counterattack for each Difficulty Level in the Ja2_Options.INI would be good. Then we could A) Adjust the number of enemies by difficulty level, and B) adjust the number of enemies to a size that matches Drassen being the first city we take if we want to. Much better than just ON or OFF.

How about externilizing Alma's and Orta's hardcoded distance to the capitol? I think being able to tweak (probably increase ;p) these sectors difficulty a bit this way would be another nice touch in 1.13.